Numerology: Antec System Cases Roundup. Page 4

Antec system cases from the previous series boasted some truly unique features, which would often make assembly difficult and would always affect their price. New Antec system cases, which we will be talking about today, namely – One, Eleven Hundred and P280, have more traditional design and much more appealing price.

The number in the names of the earlier products of the Hundred series, the Nine and Twelve Hundred, referred to the number of 5.25-inch bays in them. The inexpensive Three Hundred followed the same naming principle, although its design concept changed dramatically. The newer Two and One Hundred do not use the number to denote anything in their design or capabilities but the Eleven Hundred does have 11 bays for 2.5, 3.5 and 5.25-inch devices.

There are two dedicated bays for 2.5-inch drives above the topmost 3.5-inch bay. Drives can be fastened in these bays from the side of the mainboard compartment. Their bays have no mounting points on the other side, but it would be impossible to reach there with a screwdriver anyway.

Unlike the Antec One, the Eleven Hundred has no SSD bay on the bottom panel below the disk rack, although there is quite enough of room there.

The disk rack can accommodate up to six 3.5-inch drives. Our sample of the system case had a small defect of painting. The paint was swollen in one place and peeled off the metal after we inserted the rails with drive.

The design of the rails is improved compared to the Antec One. They now have vibration-absorbing silicone inserts and a handier shape.

The rails can be attached to the sides of the HDD case through the middle screw holes.

5.25-inch devices are installed in the same way as in the Antec One. The device is inserted into the bay and presses on a plastic lever which fixes it with prongs.

This fastening mechanism isn’t very tight. You can improve it with screws from the side of the quick fasteners only.

There are no holes for screws on the other side.

The 5.25-inch faceplates are identical to those of the Antec One.

The CPU cooler cutout is even larger than in the Antec One.

The accessories do not include a USB 3.0->USB 2.0 header adapter but there are more single-use cable straps than you get with the Antec One.

The Eleven Hundred makes it easy to assemble a computer system because there is a lot of space inside. Every assembly operation is simple and quick to do. The openings for cables are all logically placed and have rubber edging.

There is only one thing you should be aware of. The large size of the system case means you need a PSU with long cables. This is actually the reason why we took an OCZ-ZS550W power supply for this test session. Its cables are long, yet we still could hide the main ATX power cable completely in the cable compartment, although its length is quite normal (49 centimeters).

The Eleven Hundred is cooled by a couple of preinstalled exhaust fans: one 120mm fan on the back panel and one 200mm fan on the top panel. They are connected to a controller card at the top of the chassis and powered via a 4-pin PATA connector. With no regulation, they always run at their full speed. There are two empty connectors on the mentioned card, so you can connect optional fans to them.

The fans have standard 3-pin power connectors, but their cables are too short to be connected to the mainboard in order to use the latter's speed regulation capabilities. For example, the back-panel fan could only be connected to our mainboard after we turned it around in its place.

In our tests we used the default connection to the tiny controller card powered by a PATA connector. The 120mm fan rotated at 1320 RPM and the 200mm fan, at 745 RPM. The fans are more or less comfortable in the daytime, but you may want them to be quieter at night.

Unfortunately, there are no front fans by default, which means poor cooling for HDDs.

The assembled Eleven Hundred looks better than the Antec One thanks to the side window and the highlighted top fan, but it can hardly win any prizes at beauty contests.